Paul Monti 'elated and happy' as 'I Drive Your Truck' wins award

Friday

Nov 8, 2013 at 12:01 AMNov 8, 2013 at 8:02 AM

Watching patiently alone in his Raynham living room, Paul Monti said he was “elated and happy for all the Gold Star families” when “I Drive Your Truck” was recognized as Song of the Year at the 47th annual CMA Awards held in Nashville on Wednesday night.

Marc Larocque

Watching patiently alone in his Raynham living room, Paul Monti said he was “elated and happy for all the Gold Star families” when “I Drive Your Truck” was recognized as Song of the Year at the 47th annual CMA Awards held in Nashville on Wednesday night.

“I Drive Your Truck” was inspired by a radio interview Paul Monti gave about his son, Medal of Honor recipient Jared Monti, who was 30 when he was killed in Afghanistan trying to save the life of another soldier on June 21, 2006. Around Memorial Day in 2011, when asked how he keeps his son’s memory alive, the elder Monti told Boston’s NPR news station that he continues to drive the black Dodge Ram that Jared Monti left behind.

“This song touched people’s hearts all over this country,” Paul Monti said on Thursday. “It’s a song that’s now adopted by a lot of military units when they have lost someone. Fabulous people wrote this song from their heart.”

The chart topping song is performed by country star Lee Brice, but was written by Jessi Alexander, Connie Harrington and Jimmy Yeary. Harrington heard the nationally broadcast interview while she was driving around in her truck one day, and wrote down a moving comment given by Paul Monti on a Post-it note, without actually knowing his name or the context. She and the other songwriters spent a few years trying to figure out where the inspirational quote originated, before finding Paul Monti and telling him about the connection and the song’s success.

“The award was very much deserved,” Paul Monti said. “The song was divine intervention. It’s extremely popular. This song is a classic.”

When on stage accepting the award, Yeary spoke directly about Jared Monti and thanked the fallen soldier for his sacrifice.

“Jared Monti gave his life in Afghanistan for his battalion,” said Yeary. “Jared gave his life for this country. His dad to this day still drives his truck. So thank you so much, Jared, for what you did for this country, man.”

Paul Monti was driving around in the black pickup truck on Wednesday, traveling to Revere for a television interview and then to a senior center for a speaking engagement. Monti said that he tries not to hear the song on the radio when he’s in the truck because the lyrics make him so emotional that he couldn't drive on the highway.

“This thing burns gas like crazy, but that’s all right,” Brice sings, describing the truck. “People got their ways of coping, and I got mine. I drive your truck. I roll every window down, and I burn up every back road in this town. I find a field; I tear it up, 'til all the pain is a cloud of dust. Yeah, sometimes I drive your truck.”

Paul Monti now organizes Operation Flags for Vets, which gathers volunteers to place flags at the graves of 56,000 veterans at the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne in time for Memorial Day and Veterans Day. An Operation Flags for Vets event is being held this weekend ahead of Veterans Day.

Alexander, one of the songwriters, told the Gazette earlier this year that she feels “very blessed” to be a part of “I Drive Your Truck” and to have met Monti at a celebration of the song reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Country Music Chart.

“When we wrote the song, when we got done, we thought, ‘Wow, it is amazing,’” Alexander said. “We thought if we should find the person who inspired the song, but we had no information. We searched for a good solid year and a half. It was just a dream come true to find Mr. Monti. The more we found out about the coincidences of Jared and the song, the more it seemed like we were a vessel for this song. It was very special.”